Ormiston

Coordinates: 55°54′43″N 2°56′35″W / 55.912°N 2.943°W / 55.912; -2.943

Ormiston is a village in East Lothian, Scotland, near Tranent, Humbie, Pencaitland and Cranston, located on the north bank of the River Tyne at an elevation of about 276 ft.

The village was the first planned village in Scotland, founded in 1735 by John Cockburn (1685–1758), one of the initiators of the Agricultural Revolution.

Name

The word Ormiston is derived from a half mythical Anglian settler called Ormr, meaning 'serpent' or 'snake'. 'Ormres' family had possession of the land during the 12th and 13th centuries. Ormiston or 'Ormistoun' is not an uncommon surname, and Ormr also survives in some English placenames such as Ormskirk and Ormesby. The latter part of the name, formerly spelt 'toun', is likely to descend from its Northumbrian Old English and later Scots meaning as 'farmstead' or 'farm and outbuildings' rather than the meaning 'town'.

There was an "Ormiston" in Berwickshire, near Linton, where the legend of the Worm of Linton was related to land ownership by Lord Somerville and Lord Lindsay. The Cockburn family may have brought the name from the Berwickshire "Ormiston" to the East Lothian location in the 14th-century.

Ormiston (surname)

Ormiston is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Ormiston (District Electoral Area)

Ormiston is one of the ten district electoral areas (DEA) in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Located in the east of the city, the district elects seven members to Belfast City Council and contains the wards of Belmont, Garnerville, Gilnahirk, Sandown, Shandon, Knock and Stormont. Ormiston, along with wards from the neighbouring Titanic and Lisnasharragh DEAs, together with parts of Lisburn and Castlereagh District Council, form the Belfast East constituency for the Northern Ireland Assembly and UK Parliament.

The district was created for the 2014 local elections, replacing the Victoria District Electoral Area, which had existed since 1985. Nineteen candidates contested the first election in 2014, the most of any DEA in Northern Ireland.

2014 elections

References